DOING NOTHING IS BEST COURSE

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DOING NOTHING IS BEST COURSE

Through Shama Kasinath Upasani Baba asked for permission to leave Shirdi. Baba

said, "Let him stay on." Then Shama asked what he was to do. Baba’s answer was

"To do nothing". Kasinath could not understand what he should do remaining

there doing nothing. But doing nothing was only external appearance. "Doing

nothing" in Baba’s parlance meant being receptive and receiving everything from

him.

In Baba’s Guru parampara, Sishya’s work is simply nothing. The entire operation

of moulding, remoulding, raising and reaching the top of the highest spiritual

experience is the work of the Guru and the Guru alone. His mighty power moulds

everything, internal and external, and the result is the sishya is tuned into

the likeness of the Guru (Apana Sarika Karitat) and that is what Baba meant by

saying "Let him remain doing nothing".

Baba asked him to go and live in solitude (as he already loved solitude) at

Khandoba temple, just outside the village, and not mix with people but to

remain alone, doing nothing. Kasinath’s tendencies could not be so very easily

overcome. Evil as he was considered to be as a boy by the superior members of

his family, he was a great pandit especially after his studies in Sangli and

literary efforts at Amraoti, when compared with the people at Shirdi. His

learning, his mastery of Sanskrit and general information was far superior to

those of the ordinary pandit.

He was anxious to go on either with mantra or with study, which alone he

understood to be the constituents of real religion. Baba allowed him to indulge

in these for a time, but these were not part of Baba’s course for his pupil.

Studies are hindrances, as they raise in the minds of the pupil that he is

learned, that he is something, and that he must understand everything put to

him with his intellect and then rise with the help of that intellect and his

book learning. These are all egregious mistakes in Baba’s course.

In Baba’s course, the spiritual experience is sort of chemical extract inherent

in and constituting the spiritual body of Baba, the Guru, and is poured into

the soul of the sishya, which must receptively receive and absorb the same. The

entire work is that of the Guru. The sishya must swallow with deep humility,

passivity, and receptivity and assimilate the pre-digested food.

Kasinath could not understand this, and went on with his studies especially when

he met congenial spirits like G. S. Khaparde, Chidambaram Pillai and others and

later went on telling stories and lecturing. Anyhow Baba had giving him

directions, and set to work upon him in a number of ways.

The first essential preparatory step in Baba’s course is not book learning, but

the development of humility and respectivity. These could result from perfect

faith, absolute faith, unlimited and powerful faith in the Guru. The Guru must

be everything to the sishya, the giver of bread, the giver of life and light

and the giver of all that life is worth living for, and at one stroke. He must

not regard anything else. This alone is the tyaga or tan, Man, Dhan, Body, mind

and possessions. This, Baba himself has fully described in setting out his

relations with his own Guru (see BCS 175) already set out in a previous

chapter. Baba expected that others who came as pupils to him should adopt the

same course. But none of the persons that came to Baba could adopt the entire

course. As Baba himself said on one occasion, "Is there any one who will serve

me as I served my Master, that is, with perfect Nishta and with absolute

surrender?" There was none.

Written by HH Pujyasri B V Narasimha Swamiji in Life of Sai Baba.